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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 4. 1962.

Four Epigrams

Four Epigrams

On Religion

With talk of God you pass the time
As children write on a frosty window—
We enter the abyss like Absalom
Hanging between the Yes and No.

On a University Critic

Urbanus fears I'm lunatic
Through women, grog and Popery.
Teetotal, celibate, agnostic,
Urbanus cultivates his barren fig tree.

On Equality

Eating pig-nuts on all fours
In the great funfair none do well.
Tom likes boys, and Bob likes whores,
Yet both may share a bunk in Hell.

The Consolations of Music

My toe-nails itch; the days are hot and dry;
Earth trundles like a rusty Ferris wheel.
I shut the windows tight and play on my
Hydrodaktylopsychicharmonicaglasspiel.*

—James K. Baxter.

* an instrument consisting of wine-glasses filled with water to varying heights, and struck with a tuning fork.